Lock and Key
by tere moto the sentry
Summary: One shot. Jared finally realizes why the Warden is so obsessed with incarceration.


Author's Note: Whee! My first Superjail! fic!

Lock and Key

Nothing at all was out of the ordinary on this day. Cellblock #890 had been missing a ceiling (and thus its prisoners, much to their delight) since 5 a.m.; several inmates had gotten their hands on knives, and were putting them to what they called "good use"; and…_something_ was roaming the cafeteria—looking hungry. This being an ordinary day, Alice was keeping her busiest without a bat of the eye. Most of the staff at the unearthly prison was mainly desensitized to a shower of blood on the floor, a dismembered body part flying through the air. But the consistently unsettled accountant was often certain he'd never get used to people mutilating and killing each other. It was with a racing heart and frayed nerves that Jared was forced to take a detour through the treacherous Cellblock #500; as a hallway had been closed while someone's innards were being mopped up.

Panic building with every step, he passed cell after cell, treading a seemingly endless tile floor, trying to keep in the very center so as to avoid the many arms thrashing at him from between the bars. Feeling a panic attack coming on, he clutched at his heart and tried focusing only on the door ahead. He had nearly reached it when, now away from the shouting, heckling inmates, he heard his video pager ring.

"Jaaarehhdd!" an eccentric voice rang out. A characteristic nervous sweat ran down the accountant's tall forehead as his shaky fingers fished the device from his pocket. His employer looked back at him from the screen.

"Ah, Jared, so glad you answered," The Warden of Superjail rested his head on a gloved hand, "A little more and I might have ended up with laryngitis. I still may."

"Sir, I'm sorry! It was very noisy when I was coming down the hallway—" Jared sputtered out.

"Just get to my office _ahora,_" the Warden interrupted sharply, and the screen blinked off. Flicking a bead of sweat from his brow, the accountant complied.

After pausing at the door for a deep breath, Jared knocked.

"Come iiinnn!" the Warden sang out off-key. Jared nervously pushed the door open and peered inside.

"Jared! What a pleasant surprise. I didn't think you were actually coming," Jared's overzealous boss leaned back in his chair and folded his hands.

"Sir, I got here as quickly as I cou—"

"You know, I think it's obvious you've never had a Spanish lesson," Warden continued as if his employee hadn't spoken.

"Sir…?" Jared was slightly confused.

"Otherwise you'd probably know that _'ahora' _means 'now'," the Warden explained.

"I guessed that, sir, and I tried—"

"Well, Jared, I shan't keep you long; I'm sure you were busy screwing up something else. I just want you to look at something." He flipped open the top of his decorative cane and pressed a conveniently located button underneath.

That cane and that hat, Jared acknowledged. They seemed to always contain any imaginable mechanism or item (respectively) that the Warden required at any given moment; and the necessity in question was never around when not needed.

A view screen lowered in front of the office windows.

"You see, Jared," Warden closed the top of his cane and used the opposite tip of it as a pointer. "For whatever reason, quite a few inmates lately have been…shall we say…falling out of line?"

Jared felt a tingle up the back of his neck. "How…How do you mean, sir?" Though he was certain he didn't want to know.

"Observe." A recorded feed from one of the jail's security cameras began to play, illustrating the Warden's point. Fifty or so inmates were filing out of their cells to be guided away by Alice. One tripped over another, and in a place such as Superjail, it was unsurprising that a very bloody fight broke out immediately. Alice dutifully broke it up, though recklessly causing more harm in the process.

Jared's stomach—and already damaged sanity—did not wish for him to see any more security videos, but the Warden felt a few more were necessary to prove his point. Another feed showed a food fight in the cafeteria, until the inmates began throwing each other's organs. A third feed captured an intensely violent riot.

"I've seen a significant rise in disorderly conduct and violence this month," Warden concluded his presentation, "And to me, one disorderly is five too many."

"Sir, don't you mean 'one too many'?"

"Ah, but when you consider the toll each disorderly takes on my psyche," the Warden explained, "one of them feels like five."

"No offense, Warden, but I don't remember you ever taking an interest in this," Jared pointed out timidly.

"Which only shows the damage they've done to my psyche already," the prison's dictator told him darkly.

'So that's his problem?' Jared chuckled inwardly.

"And that last one was an attempted riot, Jared," the Warden added in memorandum.

"Of course, sir. So, what do you suggest?"

"Well, I was thinking we heighten the security in this place, for starters. I mean sure, it's a maximum security prison, but, being Superjail, why not make it a _super_-maximum security prison?"

"That's a brilliant idea, sir, but the monthly budget—"

"Oh, you and the budget! Always with the _stupid_ budget!" The Warden dropped into his office chair and pouted, arms flailing wildly in the air before crossing under his chin.

"Well, I _am_ the accountant," Jared dared to point out, "You _hired_ me to worry about the budget."

"Oh, why do I even have an accountant?" The dramatist asked the ceiling. "He only ever brings me bad news; ruins my beautiful dreams for this establishment."

The accountant had no idea whether it was a serious question; if it were, it seemed quite ridiculous. But he said nothing.

"Okay, Jaresie, I guess that will be all," Warden waved a hand dismissively. The addressed nodded promptly and turned to leave, but was halted by a sharp "_Ahem!_"

"_Whoooo_ said you could leave?" His employer demanded crossly as Jared whirled around.

"Well, you said that's all you want—"

"But why do you always have to leave me after I say that business is done?"

The other man did acknowledge that he should have been more confused than he was. "Er, I do have business elsewhere, sir."

"Ah, business schmusiness," the Warden leapt over his desk and threw an arm around the shorter man, pulling him closer. "I could go for a cocktail; what about you?"

"Sir, Superbar got flooded, remember? I don't recall us ever having it repaired."

"Well, _order_ it repaired."

"Reparations…will take some time…" Jared cautiously informed him.

Warden's arm dropped. "Again with you and your disappointments." He stomped back to his desk and slumped into his chair.

Jared stared at him for the longest time before realizing something. He'd long acknowledged that the Warden was the very definition of an enigma; a riddle; someone no one had ever been able to fully understand. Jared remembered having learned of his inept boss' troubled childhood, and he had always wondered if that was any cause of his outlandish behavior as an adult. And now Jared saw it. The Warden had been lonely as a child, and now, being a crazed, power-mad authoritarian, he would be lonely again. If not for these barriers. This precarious location of his fortress—a volcano in the middle of a volcano, somewhere in a warped dimension where logic was unheard of, a realm bordered by scenes of oddest spectacle, like living fantasy and horror movies—_it all made sense suddenly._ If the Warden could not trap people in Superjail with him, if they were given a choice, they would all leave in an instant—prisoners _and_ staff—leaving the Warden alone.

The remaining option would be to leave, but the Warden? No, _not the Warden._ He could never leave his precious Superjail, his haven where he ruled supreme, where he had such fantastic power. The Warden knew he had no control over the real world.

But then…what would happen if he _were_ to leave? Warden had told of his experience with the Time Police, and the window he was given to his future. If he were unleashed on the world, allowed to expand his Superjail empire, he would become an overlord unlike the world had ever seen before. Countries fallen, governments toppled—and millions of innocent lives lost.

With his jail on his side, perhaps he _did_ have some control over the real world.

Given the smallest push, what would he do?

Jared swallowed hard and set off for his office again.

The Warden of Superjail was a prisoner of Superjail, and maybe that was for the best.


End file.
